Airstrikes Against ISIS in Syria Plummet as Targets Dry Up

Officials: Not Many Stationary Targets Remain

Large numbers of airstrikes were launched by US and allied warplanes in the first nine days of the air war against ISIS in Syria. The number of strikes dropped in October, dropped again in November, and are now almost entirely halted.

The US is still launching a handful of strikes in a large number of sorties, but only a single strike was reported by any of the allied nations involved in the war all month.

The problem is lack of targets. There was little intelligence on ISIS territory in eastern Syria, and what few obvious stationary targets there were got destroyed early on.

Since then, the planes go out, but only a few find anything remotely bombable. What they’re hitting is often a mystery, as they aim at what they figure are troop movements on the ground, mostly trying to slow ISIS advances against Kurdish territory, and with mixed success.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.